With the increased worldwide use of the Internet, a greater number of businesses and merchants are creating “virtual” storefronts accessible to users on the Internet. These merchants offer, for example, retail products ranging from books, compact discs, and clothing to furniture, airline tickets, and antiques, just to name a few. In fact, the Internet has become such a major vehicle for electronic commerce that many Internet businesses display their products and take orders from customers exclusively over the Internet. While the Internet provides an effective means for merchants to promote, display, or list their various products to an enormous market of potential customers, there are only a few conventional methods by which a customer or buyer can pay the merchant for any goods or services purchased electronically over the Internet.
Conventionally, an Internet user can purchase an item from a merchant over the Internet using a credit card, or by a COD (cash on delivery) service, or by check or money order, or the like. In the credit card payment method, buyers provide their confidential credit card information to the merchant over the Internet, and the merchant processes the transaction by charging the buyers' credit card. The credit card payment method has the disadvantage of inaccessibility to all potential Internet purchasers, as every Internet user may not have a credit card account with a sufficient credit limit to complete a desired transaction. Further, many Internet users are reluctant to use the credit card payment method due to the perception that confidential credit card information may be intercepted, stolen, or otherwise misused when communicated over the Internet. The conventional credit card payment method may be problematic for international customers for the same reasons.
An “electronic wallet/purse” payment method also exists, wherein for on-line purchases the consumer uses an Internet “wallet/purse” account which draws against an actual checking account, credit card, or debit card. This approach also has limited usefulness for consumers who do not have checking accounts or credit cards, or for consumers who choose not wish to provide the checking account or credit card account information over the Internet to establish the virtual wallet/purse.
Further, merchants are often reluctant to accept credit card orders from some foreign countries due to the possibility of fraud. Also, merchants wishing to sell products to U.S. and international consumers may be hampered by the merchant's inability to obtain and establish merchant credit card processing accounts, particularly where the merchants are international merchants without an appropriate U.S. domicile.
Accordingly, what is needed is a method for facilitating the purchase of goods and services over the Internet by consumers who either do not have credit card accounts, or choose not to provide confidential credit card account information or checking account information over the Internet. It with this background in mind that the present invention was developed.